AZwarel (OP)
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June 22, 2015, 08:14:15 PM |
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First of all, we tend to forget how awesome is the fact, that we have a debate over the nature of the “block size limit solution”. Some are pro some, are contra, some are agnostic, and yet we fail to grasp how amazing is the very fact that we have an open debate about the economic-technical policy of our p2p money system!
Think about it for a moment, and imagine the same raving debate going over how the FED should or not raise interest, money supply etc. Isn't the debate itself is a proof how open Bitcoin is? I have tried to approach the subject from a less technical angle, focusing on the principal choices behind the Kbs. I may be wrong, but I think the problem is choice itself: whichever side “wins” majority, it will – probably irreversibly – set the Bitcoin network on a course of two mutually exclusive fate.
An example of those two options are as follows.
A “small”, elite, 1MB (or 8/20 as well in the near future) block size'd blockchain will render bitcoin's usage as “digital gold/ledger”, an asset literally held for store of value and proof of existence, open only for value transfers and economic activities requiring the waste amount of security and immutable nature of the blockchain. This version would be valued for its world class trust less consensus security, which is also very scarce for acquiring. Why? Because if free market allowed to work it's ways, than the insanely high demand of transacting directly on the blockchain will increase “miner fees” beyond what micro and “grocery” value transactions can afford, – those will literally die out from the blockchain, moving to semi centralized services, offchain payment processors, sidechain networks validating them only in bundles, or just utilizing a transaction focused altcoin for everyday, small value transfers. The “elitecoin” approach would make the Bitcoin network less focused – or able - on transaction speed, confirmation speed and used more as a long term savings account, a technically manageable fully validating node on every serious (value wise) bitcoin holders “home PC”, a digital gold-like depository, walled and secured on cold storage devices, paper, maybe in a bank vault for irony's sake.
The other path to walk would be the “Bitcoin WesternMasterVisa”, enabling dynamic blocksizes – if that technically feasible to implement -, where, if major adoption happens, hundred thousands of transactions will happen every second, from 2 $cents tippings on reddit to 200M$ company sells on the “Blockchain Nasdaq”. This type of bitcoin would be very different from the first one. The enforced neutrality regarding the transacted amount of bitcoins in a sea of potentially several MB per second limits fees way below today's “dust limit”, reducing individual transaction cost to fractures of pennies, but a million of them for every block. This implementation has a high cost for individually validate the blockchain – which is not good for decentralization some may say, but to be fair, the average user – now the overwhelming majority of the users, assuming this hypothetical mainstream adoption - would not care. Let me repeat that: the average user will not run nodes anyway, as of today they are not running one, no matter the hardware or knowledge factor it requires! This approach would preserve the aspect of “one network for all transaction”, which we are familiar today, but with a cost: huge data centres as acting nodes servicing thousands, millions of SPV wallets around the world, effectively marginalizing individual user's voice on the network, delegation consensus decisions on the hands of a few powerful central point (“few” in the sense of versus millions; still thousands of organizations would have to collaborate!).
No matter which path we choose with upgrading the protocol – we have to evolve for sure -, we will reach a “point of no return”, a size of adoption where drastic changes can not reach consensus any more, yet, we will have to take the first step now if we want to scale up the network. Unintended consequences all over the way.
Hence, my opinion regarding the block size debate beyond technicalities is: the problem is choice itself, for it will be (most likely) final for the fate of Bitcoin.
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